Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Monday September 17, 2007 @01:12PM
from the need-wearable-computing-to-multitask dept.

loserMcloser writes "Another Chinese man has died after spending three days in an internet cafe for an online gaming marathon session. He apparently fainted and died at the cafe from exhaustion. 'The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing. The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death."'"

Funny, I thought China already had laws dealing with online gaming... Maybe they just need more laws. Laws will save us all! Yea laws! Because if it's illegal, no one will do it. We just need to make it more illegal.

Gun control basically is the same thing: for a gun to really be a problem one must already be prepared to break the law. So given that a willingness to break the law is already a prerequisite for a gun crime to take place: do you really think that the culprit is gonna give a damn that he's breaking a law by obtaining or carrying a gun?

To put it into Slashdot terms: it would be like the government outlawing encryption to prevent terrorists from communicating. If they're talking about blowing up a building do you really think they are afraid to have a copy of PGP installed on their computer? Nope. All outlawing encryption does is take it away from the people who were originally using it for non-illegal purposes, or make criminals out of those who refuse to give it up even if their original actions were perfectly legal. Same applies to guns.

Gun control basically is the same thing: for a gun to really be a problem one must already be prepared to break the law. So given that a willingness to break the law is already a prerequisite for a gun crime to take place: do you really think that the culprit is gonna give a damn that he's breaking a law by obtaining or carrying a gun?

That argument has two major holes:

a) It is assuming that people are rational beings and that all actions are well premeditated. It's pretty well known by now that people are irrational [blogspot.com] (hey, how's that for a slashdot audience, this is a blog entry by the gmail creator!). Basically, in a surge of emotion (think domestic fights, a depressed / severely stressed kid (say a highschool shooting)), if one can easily have access to guns (by opening the local cabinet, going to a store, etc.), they can cause massively more damage, significantly more easily.

b) That the massive number of guns going around in a society will always be used by the people they were intended in the way they were intended. This is patently not true, as demonstrated by kids getting access to their grandfather's gun, or various people we (the west) have massively funded and provided guns to (think Bin Laden and the Mujahideen's in Afganistan vs the Soviets, or Saddam versus the Iranians).

There's also, of course, a moral argument. The only primary purpose of the gun is to kill. The whole protection stuff is completely secondary; a gun 'protects' by killing, or threatening to kill. I, personally, think that society has an obligation to protect its citizens, and banning a device the purpose of which is to kill is a good idea.

Disturbed teenagers? Yes, they'll still get them.Drug-runners? Yes, they'd keep getting them. In fact, if you were to ban weapons here in the US, they'd become the new pipeline for all firearms, and the ones illegally obtained would become MORE dangerous, not less. It's a felony to possess an illegally obtained semi-automatic rifle, and it's a felony to possess a select-fire AK-47. If you're gonna go, go all out.

Random jerks on the street? They'd still have them. The number of times I have been asked

Damned liberals with their nanny-state! Saving children from death! How are children going to learn the fatal consequences of dangerous actions if they are constantly protected against them? How are they going to learn to survive on their own if we don't let them die a few times?

For instance, game console manuals have been reminding you to take breaks for many years. The Game Gear manual, I know, had it.

Earthbound (SNES), too, actively alerted you after like 3 hours that you should really take a break (your dad calls your cell phone). It also had billboards about it (Mothers against Obsession or something).

I remember playing Earthbound till it alerted me several times. It helped; I'd be like "Oh CRAP, I have been playing a long time."

This isn't a reason for games/console to remind players to take breaks. This is a reason to make even better games that will ensnare more of the world's obviously pathetic genetic material and flush it down the same toilet that this guy went down.

I've had VERY long gaming sessions, even ones where I (quite foolishly) remained sitting for 12 hours in a row. But, one of the reasons I've never gone much longer that is that there were warning signs that I should quit, from yawning to blurred vision. There's no doubt in my mind that people who die in this fashion suffer symptoms long before they keel over, and at the very least there are the symptoms that everyone suffers when they need sleep (like, you know, falling asleep).

Of course, there's plenty of blame to throw around to others as well. How about the staff of this cafe? What could possibly possess them to let this guy keep going? What was he ingesting in order to remain awake for that ridiculous period of time, and why didn't they either stop him ingesting it or stop serving him? Heck, after 24 hours I'd probably call an ambulance on spec! But, it's China, so who knows how people react...still, just the process of one human caring about the welfare of any other should have caused some reaction.

To reiterate my original point, though: Now that it's over, it's probably just as well that he's gone. Not only was he dumb as a half-bag of rocks, but the fact that he could do this to himself in a public place tells me that he's probably better off dead than living in his community.

Well, there are a couple of big factors that can cause problems. One, as I wondered about in my OP, is the possibility of chemicals used to stay awake. I don't know what the situation is like in China, so I can't even begin to make an educated guess as to the availability of particular drugs there. And, indeed you're correct about the dangers of sitting in the same position for that long. You can develop a deep venous thrombosis in your leg that can then migrate to your lung, and at that point you're ju

The very definition of 'truthiness' is "this is the truth because I say it is" (see Colbert Report, S01E01). That is exactly what is going on here, and of which you say there is a lack of. 'Truthiness' is not synonymous with 'truthfulness'--it is the antithesis of it.

The State has confirmed today that it has struck a deal with Comcast to provide monitoring services stating had Comcast's service been in place, no one would have died as their Internet service would have been terminated in time to save the victim.

Comcast has yet to release a statement about the deal however the President has been heard stating in the back "It's Comcastic!!"

The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet.

The article gives the impression that the Internet has something to do with his death. Exhaustion is exhaustion, regardless of whatever reason you have to stay awek. He could have just been gardening.
It would definitely be more relevant to know whether he was using any stimulants to stay awake.

I see no reason not to believe it.What would the Chinese media or the Chinese Government gain from this?

There's no reason to release details. It would only embarass the gamer's family. Having an addiction is a weakness, and the media did (IMHO) the right thing in not releasing the gamer's name. There is no reason to shame the gamer or the gamer's family.

Also, if the Chinese Government wanted, they could easily impose a curfew on Internet cafes such as the curfews that are imposed on bars in the USA. In many

Well, it *IS* the most populated place in the world... racial differences notwithstanding, statistically the odds are that for any given random human trait, you are most likely to find it there in the highest quantity.

As A. Whitney Brown [wikipedia.org] said on Saturday Night Live when China reach a population of one billion: "Even if you're a one-in-a-million kind of person, there's still a thousand people just like you."

I'd guess it's one of two things, either he's earning money by farming loot and if he logs/leaves he will reduce his income substantially (because someone else will get his location or it takes a long time to reach). Or he's really just on the receiving end of a variable schedule reward system [wikipedia.org] and he misses the dopamine hits too much to leave.

This is precisely the problem with the youth of today compared to my Great Generation. Just one gamer kicks the bucket and 100 others run away from the scene scared. Come on guys, show some courage. Show some sticktoitiveness.

This is precisely the problem with the youth of today compared to my Great Generation. Just one gamer kicks the bucket and 100 others run away from the scene scared. Come on guys, show some courage. Show some sticktoitiveness.

Yeah, back in my day, kids would play on a pogo stick until they dropped dead. They played on the pogo stick in three feet of snow snow, uphill, both ways! And when you tell kids that today, they never believe you.

I bet the truth is, a few of the gamers left the scene, the others immediately started fighting over his computer (which was likely still logged in) to see who could get his items and gold sent to their toons first.

I'm an Asian gamer with a mild addiction to warcraft 3. I don't understand how Asia can have a few of these incidents and the west has so none.Is there a distinct cultural difference to explain this? Or is it just statistic's? There i about 2.5 billion people in Asia proper vs 1 billion in all of the west. I don't understand how addiction is going to force you to sleep or drink or eat. I suppose I don't understand because all of my addictions are mild and state endorsed (women, video games, food, and tea).

My guess is that there are no 24 hour internet cafes in the West that's why no one dies. If you're forced to go home you can't play three days straight. With that said you could just play at home I guess.....Doesn't the guy have a job or something?

I'm an Asian gamer with a mild addiction to warcraft 3. I don't understand how Asia can have a few of these incidents and the west has so none.Is there a distinct cultural difference to explain this? Or is it just statistic's? There i about 2.5 billion people in Asia proper vs 1 billion in all of the west. I don't understand how addiction is going to force you to sleep or drink or eat. I suppose I don't understand because all of my addictions are mild and state endorsed (women, video games, food, and tea).

I don't know, my cousin in guangzhou has a life similar to mine. Wake up, work 8-10 h at a tech shop. Go home spend a few hours with the GF. game. Sleep. Except I get 1 more day off a week, My overtime is optional and infrequent, and my GF is hotter although his is very cute too. Life isn't so bad in the parts of china I visited (shanghai, beijing, guangzhou, HK, Macau, Xin Hua).

I don't understand how Asia can have a few of these incidents and the west has so none.

The keyword is a few. You can't start thinking of physiological or social differences and base it on a handful of incidents if you have such a large number of "computer addicts". And frankly, there may be undocumented victims in the U.S. too.

Being an American who has lived in Asia and is an avid gamer my answer to your question: I have no freak'n idea. American (western) gamers play about as much as Asian gamers. I'd estimate extreme gamers probably play about 4-6 hours a day in reality (not me, I only wish I had that kind of spare time). The only difference I see is that in Asia it's usually in an Internet Cafe with smoke so think you'd think the building was on fire. Hey, maybe that's it! Smoke inhalation kills! News at eleven.

In my experience, Asian gamers take it a helluva lot more seriously. I used to play SC2 against my roommate. I just wanted to pick it up and play every once in a while, and learn a few tricks. I could beat almost anybody else on the floor. My roommate, though, his goal was to become a monster. And so we were pretty competitive for a few months, and then I lost interest in improving while he just kept at it. He became nigh-unbeatable. It was pretty much the same deal with respect to CounterStrike and two other Asian guys in the building or Starcraft and another set of people who liked that or whatever else we were playing back then.

As for whether this applies to general work ethic, or sports, or arts, I'm not so sure, but it seems very true of gaming.

We had a week-long LAN party during the summer between 11th and 12th grade (wow...I know I'm still quite young only 23, but DAMN that feels like a long time ago) It was quite cool the way it worked. There were a total of about 20 people or so in this one dude's basement...we would essentially play in "shifts"...10 people or so would play for 3-5hours while the others slept. Rinse and repeat.

We had a lan party summer after our senior year (23 also - represent) and only 15 people, but also 15 computers. More people (girlfriends, friends without computers - about 20 in all) would drift in and out for about three days, go see a movie/get food and come back. People slept on the floor when they were tired (typically 3am-10am), and gamed/socialized set shit on fire (hey, they were in high school)... but they still obeyed their bodily functions. You're an idiot to stay seated and play video games cont

Heh. In 1996 we got our university lab outfitted with 5 SUN machines. What did we do first? Put dgaDoom on them and played. We played for about 48 hours. It was crazy... With the exception of going to bathroom, we stayed and played deathmatches (!) one after another. We even hired the low-graders to bring us food and drinks:).

Obviously, the man was driven to death by the evil corporations dealing in virtual worlds' artifacts [wikipedia.org]. His "gaming" was, in fact, earning a (hard) living. Just another casualty of America's insatiable corporate greed.

My wife pointed out that the phrase "the leading cause of death" is one we need to be careful of, because it only tells you what caused the *most* deaths, not whether something causes an unacceptably large amount of deaths. (Yes, yes, what's an "acceptable death," bite me.) It came up in the context of neonatal deaths; she pointed out that one day, all causes of neonatal death will have been wiped out, and then one newborn will get eaten by a dingo and suddenly dingoes will be the "leading cause of death

A few weeks ago there was a post about a programming competition sponsored by Microsoft in which students were expected to stay up for 24 hours straight and eat soda and junk food while coding.

People here are laughing about this guy because he neglected sleep and nutrition to compete in this contest. They are saying "darwin award." Where was this same sentiment when Microsoft caused students to do the same thing for a different contest?

Health should come before work and play, people! Your job is worthless if you are dead or ill from a terrible lifestyle. Don't let your boss force this behavior on you, and don't let companies like Microsoft force it on students.

24 hours is nothing. You've never pulled an all-nighter to get a semester project completed?

Are you telling me you can't see the difference between a voluntary competition (hint: its kinda fun to pull an all-nighter every now and then... I have a wife and 2 kids and if I come across a fun project, I still do it from time to time) and a man who was either incapable of determining his tolerance or chose to ignore it (most likely the latter)?

And I suppose you would have people oppose the voluntary fund raiser Up till Dawn [stjude.org] as well? I mean, think of the college students that will be kept up all night and have to go to class in the morning!

You hear about people surviving the wild for days or weeks with little or no food and water, and these people are hiking or walking, and in very hot or cold climates. So how is that only after 3 days someone who is just sitting there using almost no muscles can die in such a short time? Are they so malnurished that any day without food and water is death? Is their brain using so much energy gaming it starves their body?

I heard a really good article a few weeks ago on NPR where sociologists were looking into the root cause of internet/gaming addiction in China. One interesting theory is that this generation of gamers is the product of the "one child per family" policy in China. Essentially this generation in China is full of only-children. This is bound to cause social issues, and this internet/gaming addiction is only a symptom of a larger sociological problem.